The Amber Lee Boxed Set

  I did as Frank said and closed my eyes. I had meditated a thousand times, so this part wasn't difficult for me. It would always start the same way. All around me was water, and I was a little ship. The waves would lick at my hull, and I would listen to the gentle lapping sound until my mind began to float. Once I had started to float, I would be able to tell my invisible body where to go; higher into the astral Nether--that place where invisible things live--or lower into the self, into the deepest reaches of my psyche.

  I never went lower.

  Frank cleared his throat and started to speak. "We call to you, Dagda, father of Brigid. High King of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Hear us."

  "Hear us," Damien and I repeated.

  "Dagda," Frank continued, "Oh great Earth-God, we ask you to lend us your Undry so that we might be satisfied on this night. Hear us."

  Once again, Damien and I repeated "Hear us."

  Silence.

  Besides the tingle of excitement I couldn't feel anything else happening. I had learned to identify when the Power flowed through me. It was like an electric current--no, a surge of electricity—and it surrounded and filled me. It didn't make my hairs stand on end, but it touched my insides, snaked in and out of every pore in my body, and left me feeling giddy and high after.

  The Power hadn’t come.

  "I don't feel anything," I said, opening my eyes.

  "Fuck," Frank said. "I knew I should have brought a harp."

  "A harp," Damien said, cocking an eyebrow. "You wanted to get a harp in here too?"

  "The Dagda played a harp. We could have done with a harp."

  "And where were we supposed to get a harp from?"

  "I don't know... we could have broken into a school?"

  "A school..."

  "Absolutely. We would have brought it back, of course."

  "Sure."

  I knew Frank was joking, but Damien hadn't yet adjusted to Frank's brand of sarcasm. I stifled a giggle at the thought of a gaunt man like Frank sneaking around a school wearing his sailor's hat and lugging around a huge harp. They wouldn't know what to make of him! I didn’t think anyone in Raven’s Glen was quite as flamboyant as he.

  "Okay, we aren't getting a harp," I said, closing the discussion. "What do you think we did wrong?"

  "Maybe the Dagda isn't home?" Damien offered.

  "Oh, now he cracks a joke," Frank said, scoffing.

  "How about a rhyme?" I asked.

  "Actually, that could work," Frank said.

  "A rhyme?" Damien asked.

  To answer Damien's question, I recited a part of the Wiccan Rede. "To bind the spell well every time, let the spell be said in rhyme."

  "I hadn't thought about that," Frank said, "I'm not used to using Magick with other people. It's like sharing a needle. I just don't do it... unless I'm out of needles or the guy is really, really cute."

  I rolled my eyes. "Well, yeah, that's why witches rhyme," I said, "Because it just works."

  "Any of you know any good rhymes we can use?" Damien asked Frank.

  Frank cocked his head and raised both eyebrows. "Just because I'm gay doesn't mean I know how to rhyme. Or sing. Or even dance."

  "Okay," I said, after a moment, "Let's try this. Hands again, please."

  We joined again, closed our eyes, and allowed a moment for our minds to float again. Then, as though the words had been living in the back of my mind the whole time, I said: "We call upon a God so great, amidst a very sacred date, to bless us with a mighty feast of wine and bread and beast. To Dagda of the Irish Isle, God of Earth with charming smile, we gently do invoke thy power; be with us on the witching hour."

  At the edge of my aura a trickle of energy poked at my own. It was a curious energy, like a cat deciding whether or not to let me pet it. I wondered if my incantation took hold but didn't dare open my eyes; just in case. I had learned a thing or two about how to react to Magick phenomenon and knew well enough to remain still and not spook it.

  Spook it. As if Magick could be spooked.

  "Nothing's happened," Damien said.

  "What time is it?" I said.

  "Eleven fifty eight."

  Wow.

  "Creepy," Frank said. "Uncanny, even. The girl's a natural."

  I wasn't aware of the time before Damien had mentioned it. Using the witching hour in the rhyme just felt… natural. Somehow. Or maybe I was good at rhyming? Regardless, I still wouldn't open my eyes. The energy was there, tip-toeing around me, invisible, and I allowed it to continue undisturbed.

  "Can you guys feel that?" I asked.

  "Feel what?" Frank asked.

  I guess that's a no.

  "I feel... something," Damien said. We were all still holding hands. Between us, a current was starting to pass. His fingers were starting to feel rubbery against my own, as if one of us were plugged into a wall socket.

  "Do you know the incantation?" I asked the other witches, "Can you repeat it?"

  "I think so," Frank said.

  Damien also agreed.

  "Alright, let's do it three times. I'll start, we'll do it row-your-boat style."

  A pause, a breath, and I started the rhyme again. Frank and Damien joined in on cue and our voices became a unified rhyme, echoing off the attic walls. This time, I knew, something would happen. I had no idea what exactly would happen–but it would be big.

  We call upon a God so great, amidst a very sacred date, to bless us with a mighty feast of wine and bread and beast. To Dagda of the Irish Isle, God of Earth with charming smile, we gently do invoke thy power; be with us on the witching hour.

  I had finished my first lap of the entire rhyme when it started. The reliable SS Amber Lee, floating along the vast ocean of my consciousness, never soared to the skies or sank to the depths unless I willed it to. She never ran aground, never veered off course, and her crew never mutinied against her captain.

  Until now.

  We call upon a God so great amidst a very sacred date…

  My meditation ship sighted land and raced toward it as if pulled by some kind of massive force. I tried to steer it back on course, but my will faltered. A trickle of exhilaration found its way to the base of my spine and was starting to creep, like a pair of warm hands—a lover's hands—around my abdomen.

  … to bless us with a mighty feast of wine and bread and beast.

  Every word that came out of my mouth sent a little vibration pulsing into the warm, wet space between my legs. I couldn't sit still! The vast ocean looked, now, more like a flat stomach—Damien's stomach—and the ship was a pair of fingers, a set of lips, and a tongue. Lapping, tasting.

  To Dagda of the Irish Isle, God of Earth with charming smile…

  Time began to grind to a halt. Each word I spoke felt like it had been spoken an hour apart from the last one. Days apart. Worlds apart. In the space between them there was only Damien and hunger, lust, want, need—close. Lips, tongue, breasts, groans, rhythms, heartbeats, desire—so close!

  …we gently do invoke thy power; be with us on the witching hour.

  My eyes snapped open. I bit my lip and turned my face away, though I was sure the others had seen the sudden flush to my cheeks. Or maybe they hadn’t. Maybe they had kept their eyes closed the whole time and hadn’t seen what had just happened to me. But I was a throbbing, aching mess, and I hadn't even been touched! What the hell was that about?

  Blood was racing to my cheeks, flushing them with a warm glow. Frank and Damien were staring, now, although Frank had a sneaky grin on his face as if he was in on my little secret. And maybe he was. Frank had a knack for knowing things he wasn't supposed to know, and I felt like an open book to him even when I was at my most composed.

  "Are you okay?" Damien asked.

  "Yeah," I said. Breathe deep and slow. "I'm fine, why?"

  "You trailed off at the end."

  "Did... we finish?"

  "One of us did," Frank said. Oh, Frank. He knew. Of course he did.

  "We finished," Damien said, noddi
ng.

  "And... what time is it?"

  Damien checked. 12:02am.

  "Now what?" I asked. I let my shoulders drop, bid my body to relax, and leaned back on the pillows beneath my butt. But boy if I wasn't looking at Damien like a dog eying a piece of meat. I couldn't remember the last time I felt so... so... turned on. I blew a kiss to Damien when caught me staring and he smiled.

  "Now," Frank said, "We do this."

  He grabbed a plastic cup, dipped it into the empty cauldron, and scraped around at the bottom. He looked determined, concentrated, like a miner digging into a hole he knew was full of riches if only he could reach deep enough. Of course, the cauldron had a bottom, but after a moment I couldn't hear the sound of his cup touching the iron, and Frank's hand was stuck in there all the way to the elbow!

  "Frank?" I asked.

  "Schh," he said, and when he pulled his hand back his cup was filled with a sloshy, cinnamon scented liquid.

  "Uhh... what is that?" Damien asked.

  Frank brought his nose to the rim of the cup, took a whiff. "Spiced cider," he said.

  "But… where...?" I didn't finish the question. It was a stupid question. Of course it came from inside the cauldron; I just didn't know how it was even possible for spiced cider to just manifest out of thin air.

  "What did we just do?" I asked.

  Frank took a sip of the drink and smiled, satisfied. "Just a little midnight Magick," he said.

  Chapter Two

  "So, okay," I said. "What the fuck did we just do and how did we do it?"

  "You want me to explain the how to you?" Frank asked, a bemused eyebrow cocked.

  Of course, we had done Magick. No great mystery there. Well, Magick was a mystery, but wielding it in small bursts had become as easy as breathing or speaking. This kind of thing though, rituals, were a different sort of beast. I wasn’t ready for this. I kinda thought Frank was screwing around when he said we could make booze out of nothing.

  "Okay, maybe not the how," I said, "But the what?"

  "Fine,” Frank said “But you have to pour us another shot each."

  "Oh Gods, another shot?"

  "Yup. We just performed a damned miracle here tonight and we have to celebrate."

  Frank slid a bottle of Sambuca across to me. We had all enjoyed the spiced cider and bread—bread!—that the bottomless cauldron produced, but we were modern Witches, and modern Witches drink hard liqueur.

  "Alright," I said, proceeding to pour a trio of shots.

  "It's simple," Frank said, knocking back the shot like it was water, "I had never tried this before, but I was told that Magick, when performed in a circle, by a coven, was always way more powerful than the kind of Magick a Witch could produce on her own."

  I took my shot and felt it burn a path down my throat. "But you've invoked the spirit before, right?" I asked.

  "Yeah, but this was different," Frank said.

  "How?"

  "Because, Witch, we were invoking a seasonal spirit and asking it to lend us its power; not to just hang around and have shots with us."

  The word Witch was, for Frank, a play on the word Bitch. He used it as a term of endearment toward me and I kind of liked it. Like an in-joke, except this time I was in on it and not the butt of it. I felt like Frank and I had been paired up in the heavens and destined to meet and become friends. Two peas in one freaky little pod.

  Damien stood on his knees and reached into the cauldron with a plastic cup, but came up empty. The well had run dry. "That's it?" he asked.

  Frank shrugged. "I don't know how long the Magick lasts."

  "Can we do it again?" I asked.

  "We can, but we shouldn't."

  "Look at you, preaching restraint. I call hypocrite!"

  It was half a joke. Frank had come a long way in the last couple of months; I had helped him get clean off the heroin addiction and I was so proud of his achievement. But he still drank like a sailor and had a tendency to use Magick as often as he liked. Yet, for some reason, he would tell me off for being excessive.

  "If I'm a hypocrite then you're a home wrecker," Frank said, grinning like the Cheshire cat.

  I shoved Frank hard on the shoulder and he fell on the pillows.

  "Hey," Damien said, interrupting, "She didn't wreck anything."

  "Oh relax, Lancelot," Frank said as he straightened out again, "You're gonna have to get used to the way we operate. There's no need for knights in shining armor here. We’re all fucked up in some way."

  "It's okay," I said to Damien. I could tell he was wound up, so I poured him another shot. That should fix it, right? "Here," I said.

  Damien took the shot glass but didn't drink.

  "Anyway, as I was saying," Frank said, "You shouldn't just invoke the spirit. I made that mistake once on my own and it didn't work out well."

  "You haven't told me this story," I said, interested.

  Frank sighed. "Okay, so Nick and I—I've told you about my dick of an ex-boyfriend Nick, right?—anyway, we weren't having a fantastic time in the bedroom if you know what I mean. Monogamy tends to do that to a person after a while and it’ll get you too, mark my words. Anyway things weren't going great, so I had the fantastic idea of invoking a spirit of passion to our bedroom... to spice things up., you know?” Frank paused. “Have either of you ever invoked the spirit before?" he asked, veering off.

  "Intentionally?" I asked.

  "No, by accident. Of course intentionally, witch."

  A cold chill caressed my back. I hadn't told Frank about what I did to Kyle. In fact, Damien was the only soul I had ever told. I would tell him one day, but not today. "Then... no," I said.

  "Well, the incantation is tough,” Frank said, “I mean, like putting on contacts at one in the morning, drunk, while being simultaneously being fiddled with by a young Latino man kind of tough."

  I couldn't stop the giggle from falling out of my mouth.

  "So anyway,” he said, clearly annoyed at my interrupting his story. “I fucked up on the incantation and ended up inviting a Gremlin into my home."

  "A... Gremlin?" Damien asked, "Like, from the movie?"

  "It may as well have been. The little son of a bitch had a free for all, pissed all over my electrics and cut the power to half the neighborhood."

  "Wait," I said, throwing my hands up like I was stopping traffic. "Did you actually see this thing? What did it look like!"

  "See it? No honey. You don't see these things, but you know they're there. Like stalkers."

  "So how'd you know it was a Gremlin?"

  "Gremlins like to fuck with electronics. What else could it have been? Anyway, I'm bored of talking about that. Let's get another drink."

  I went for the bottle, but Damien stopped me. "Another one?" he asked.

  "Yeah, why not?" I said.

  "Because it's late. And we have class tomorrow."

  "Hush," I said, "I want to show you guys something anyhow."

  Damien's glass was full so I filled up mine and Frank's, although I thought there were four glasses instead of two, so I ended up making a mess of things and chuckling at my own shoddy bartending.

  "Damn,” Frank said, “You really can't handle your drink, can you?"

  How was he still sober? "Hush!” I said, “Okay, are you ready?"

  Frank and Damien shut up and waited for me to do whatever I was planning on doing. I had never tried this before and doing it drunk probably wasn’t the best idea I had ever had, but you only live once. So I lowered my mouth to the line of glasses, made a barrier with my hands to conceal them, and concentrated. Think, concentrate, fire-fire-fire. Blow. I took my hands away as I blew out a breath of air and as my breath touched the glasses tiny blue tongues of fire sprouted up.

  "Holy shit," Damien said, staring.

  "Look at that,” Frank said, “The girl's got Magick. I haven't seen a drunken Witch control her Magick like that before."

  "That's what happens when you practice... non-stop." I picked up my flam
ing shot. "Yeah, I have no life."

  "Alright, on three," Damien said, succumbing to one last drink. I guessed he was impressed, but Damien wasn’t the easiest person to read.

  I took the swig, groaned, and slammed the glass on the hardwood floor. Damien was right; that last shot was a bad idea. I had to be up in a few hours and I was asking for a hangover. But I hadn't had this much fun in weeks and it was about time I let my hair down and did something for no reason other than to enjoy it.

  "You know," Frank said, out of the blue, "You could cut the sexual tension in this room with a knife."

  "What?" I asked.

  "No, I like it,” he said, smirking smugly. “Gives this place a kind of shag pad feel."

  "That's because Amber had a three way with two of her friends up here a while back," Damien offered; and how gracious of him to volunteer that little tidbit, too.

  I slapped him hard on the arm. "I'll have you know, mister know-it-all, that it wasn't just a simple three-way—it was all part of a ritual."

  "A ritual, huh?" Frank asked, "My old boyfriend and I used to do rituals like those too, always looking for ways to make sex more satisfying. It wasn't, if you couldn't tell."

  I rolled my eyes.

  "Have you guys had sex in here yet?" Frank asked.

  Damien shook his head.

  "You should, otherwise all this energy is going to fall flaccid."

  Flaccid. I giggled again. I turned into a child when under the influence. Eliza would approve of my behavior, at least, even if Damien didn’t. I looked up at him and caught him staring at me, eyes glinting against the candlelight. Almost on instinct I bit my lower lip, and the warmth I felt earlier came rushing back.

  "On that note,” Frank said, “I need a smoke. And I think I'm gonna get the fuck out of here, too."

  The hour had crept past three AM without any of us realizing it. "Yeah, I have class tomorrow, or today, or whatever." I said.

  Frank rose to his feet with a strange kind of grace, seemingly unfazed by the amount of alcohol he had taken tonight. "Alright," he said, "I'll catch you two later."

  I nodded, and Frank meandered out sparing a moment to pat Damien on the shoulder as he left. Damien turned his gaze to me and stared at me from behind lazy eyelids. Gods, those eyelashes. They were like black fans sitting on top of sparkling gems. Why did he have to have better eyelashes than mine?